​     Even though our weather is milder than past Springs, it’s still January and theoretically Winter, with its low light and nighttime chill that makes plants grow so slowly. So it’s time to plant bareroot plants – artichokes, asparagus, grapes, berry vines, fruit trees – and seeds like lettuce, spinach, chard, tatsoi, bok choy, parsley, cilantro, peas and sweet peas. 
       I’d never gotten around to planting edible pea and sweet pea seeds before the holidays, but the self-sown sweet peas from last year that are sprouting up remind me to do it now along with planting my 4 new bareroot fruit trees.
 
Peas and Sweet Peas
     My husband likes to “do the work” of shelling his peas, so I sow a selection of varieties for him since he doesn’t seem to prefer one over the other.
     I, however, want to get as much food value as possible from what I grow, so I rely on Super Sugar Snap – the tall type that you eat the entire pod.  Although I’ve also grown the dwarf versions of Sugar Ann and Sugar Daddy in the past, I always come back to the tall ones that require trellising for both the quantity and size of peas, their flavor, and the length of their bearing period. 
     I sow the sweet peas on the east-facing side of the trellis which is less accessible, and the edible peas on the three remaining more-accessible sides. This is so I can more easily harvest the edible peas every day for the three-to-four weeks they’re bearing.  The sweet peas need picking only every third day or so.
   Despite the fact that the sweet pea pods are poisonous, they’re easy to distinguish from the edible pods when they’re planted and intertwined together.  Sweet pea pods are smaller and hairy and slightly gray-green, whereas edible pea pods are larger and smooth and bright clear green.
     I leave my double-decker trellis up year ‘round – for bean vines or cucumbers or even squash during summer.
 
Artichoke
     Dig a lot of compost and manure into the soil, and set artichoke roots with buds or shoots just above the soil line, spaced two feet apart.  Water them in.  When new growth emerges, deeply soak the area once a week.  Plants may last for 15-20 years, so provide them with lots of manure as mulch every year.
 
Asparagus
     Asparagus will grow and produce satisfactorily in partially-shaded areas such as next to a fence or a building, especially if the plants receive morning sun.
     Dig a lot of compost and manure into the soil, and set roots at least six inches deep and a foot apart. Cover them with a fluffy mix of soil, manure, or other organic mulch, and water in well.  
     Refrain from harvesting asparagus until the plant's third season, to enable the plant to gain strength. When you do harvest, cut only a few stalks that are the width of your middle finger to not stress the plant by leaving too few stalks to continue growing and feeding the rootsystem for future crops.
 
Berry Vines
     Tips from last year's berry canes should be well-rooted. Cut off the vine above the third node from the rooted tip and plant.
 
Grapes
     Make cuttings of branches with three or four nodes, distinguishing the root-end with a straight-across cut, and the foliage-end with an angled cut so you know which end to insert into potting mix for rooting.
 
Roses
     When transplanting roses, add humus and potash to the potting soil, but be spare with nitrogen fertilizers, as these hasten new foliage which may be damaged by late frosts.  Apply the nitrogen fertilizers a month or so after foliage has unfurled.
 
Bareroot Fruit Trees
     I added four new fruit trees to my garden.
Fuji Apple is listed as needing more chill hours that my garden provides, but I don’t really like the low-chill varieties I’ve tasted so am willing to experiment.  I chose a planting location that’s shaded in the early mornings to hopefully keep its roots chilly longer year ‘round and perhaps foster better adaptation to my garden.
Royal Lee Cherry will pair with my Minnie Royal so they pollinate each other.  These varieties are supposed to do well in warmer climates.
Double Delight Nectarine is repeatedly voted as best flavored in Dave Wilson Nursery taste tests.
Jiro Persimmon, another Fuyu type to my existing 50-year-old tree will hopefully offset the old tree’s alternate bearing and ultimately take over as my main producer once the old one gets too old to produce much.
 
How to Buy and Plant
    Buy bareroot trees that have well-developed fibrous root systems, a single well-shaped leader, several side branches around the trunk, and no serious bark injury. Avoid trees with circling or tangled roots.
     Side branches should be smaller than the trunk and growing from it at angles between horizontal and 45 degrees.
     Dig the planting hole at least two feet wide but only as deep as the container or roots.  Loosen soil but don't add compost or manure – you want the tree roots to extend out into the native soil, and adding organic matter will make it more of a container that roots don’t want to leave. 
     Create a berm about three feet wide around the tree, and fill with water three times to make sure that the soil is thoroughly saturated throughout the prospective root zone. 
     Apply manure and compost as mulch on top of the soil and out beyond the drip line so its nutrients will “melt” into the broad expanse of soil with every rain. 
 
Harvesting
     Lots of goodies are coming out of the garden – four colors and shapes of leaf lettuce, two sizes of spinach, tatsoi, chard (still producing from last year), parsley, cilantro, and the first broccoli headlets. 
     Removing that first main broccoli head fosters side shoots to keep us in bitesize pieces through the beginning of summer heat.
     When harvests of broccoli or chard or tatsoi or other greens become greater than we can eat fresh immediately, I steam or saute up a whole batch with garlic, leeks or onions, and mushrooms, freezing it in meal-size portions for later use in soups, quiches or whatever.

    Weren’t the Rose Parade floats exquisite?  I’m always impressed with the variety of “natural” materials used to decorate them. 
        Remembering my senior year in high school (Yay, John Muir!) when our English class (Yay, Mr. Eberhart!) spent the whole last day doing the decorating in the cold float barns.  In those days, the truly cold temperatures of the season served the cut flowers well, keeping them spritely as we glued them on so they’d be more likely to still be perky throughout the next day’s sunniness on their way traveling down the parade route.
   That’s when I first became aware of the requirement that all decoration materials be natural, and the consequent strange pairing of what was used to become what – besides whole flowers, there were seeds and buds, leaves and individual petals, whole and ground herbs and spices.  Whatever form they came in and however they were manipulated to become faces or bodies or backgrounds, they hardly ever portrayed what they really were like orchids becoming orchids.  A real transmutation!  I still marvel at the lists of ingredients.
         This fascination makes a trip to see the floats for the couple of days after the parade even more interesting. 
 
     So what’s happening during our current “spring” that should be winter?
 
Lettuce and Tatsoi
      The lettuce and tatsoi that I transplanted a couple of weeks ago are protected by milk cartons with their bottoms cut off.  When I’d installed them, I’d intended them to provide frost protection.  But, as you know the weather warmed up to the mid-80s during the daytimes and mid-50s during evenings, so frost was a moot point. 
    As it turned out, those coverings became protection from munching critters.  When the foliage crowded the containers, I removed a couple of them and harvested the outer leaves.  But, the next evening I again visited the bed and found those plants munched down to their bases.  In the hopes of the plants recouperating, I watered the bed and replaced the containers.  Good thing I hadn’t removed more of them!
     Yesterday afternoon, I harvested the rest of the plants, leaving the two or three smallest interior leaves to continue growing, watered the bed, and replaced the containers. 
 
Beets and Celery
     Transplanted several weeks ago, they’re doing fine, just appreciating watering to keep the soil moist but draining well.
 
Broccoli and Cauliflower
     I’d removed the milk containers when the foliage peaked out the top hole, and watered the bed.  The foliage was crumpled for a day or so but straightened itself out fine when it could grow unimpeded. 
     Three of the cauliflowers “buttoned up”, forming one-inch-wide heads, so I harvested them.  Cauliflower is notorious for stressing out in this manner, and undoubtedly the sudden 80+-degree heat caused it.  Hopefully the others from that 6-pack won’t suffer the same fate.  Perfectly bite-sized and yummy, but definitely a lost opportunity to develop full-sized heads.
 
Planting Dormant Deciduous Fruit Trees
     I’ve purchased three new trees – Royal Lee Cherry to pair with my Minnie Royal (the two need each other for better pollination), Fuji apple, and Double Delight nectarine. 
     I’ve kept them in as shady spot as I have until I can get them planted so they’ll stay as dormant as possible until then.
 
Pruning Perennials and Roses
     Prune perennials down to the lowest several nodes on existing branches.  Salvias are especially helpful in indicating where to do this since they’re already pushing new foliage.  With this warm weather, they’ll become attractive mounds of fresh foliage within a couple of weeks.
     With this daytime heat and barely-cool evening temperatures, pruning of roses should be as thorough as possible – removing leaves as well – so the plants will be forced to go as dormant as possible, being able to rest a bit before being plunged into another year of producing flowers.